


The Wonderful Adventures of Sophia Hess, Babysitter Extraordinaire

by WhyWhyNot



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Babysitting, Body Horror, Gen, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27163939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyWhyNot/pseuds/WhyWhyNot
Summary: In which Sophia Hess babysits, survives, and makes a friend.
Comments: 74
Kudos: 37





	1. In the Present (2009)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gerbilfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/gifts).



It’s a new beginning.

It’s high school. The other students are going to be older, more mature. Less childish. Maybe the _glass_ will be thinner.

(Only very little kids should be childish.) 

It’s a _new _school. They won’t know her. Maybe she can make friends.__

__Not that she _needs_ friends. Or wants them. She’s doing just fine on her own. She doesn’t need someone to follow her around and then crumple at the first hardship._ _

__She just wants Dean and Rory to get off her back. They’re always bothering her about balancing her cape life with her civilian one, like it’s that all-important thing._ _

__Armsmaster doesn’t have any civilian friends and he’s _fine_._ _

__Mostly. Kinda._ _

__It’s _high school_. Things are going to get _better_._ _

__Sophia walks through the door of Arcadia._ _


	2. In the Past (2007)

“Hello Sophia!”

“Hello Miss Bass,” Sophia says.

Miss Bass is Sophia’s neighbor. She’s also the coolest person she knows because she makes the best muffins, and also one time an Empire goon tried to jump her and she set him on fire.

“Would you mind watching Eddison for an hour or two while I go do groceries ? I just made muffins, you’d be able to have one.”

Eddie is five, which means that he’s very boring and kinda whiny, but Sophia really likes muffins, and she can put him in front of a cartoon and read one of Miss Bass’s murder mystery books.

(She can go out of the house and not talk to Mom until dinner, and then she’ll be able to try her costume and use her powers.)

(She can walk through walls and nothing can stop her.)

“I gotta ask my mom,” Sophia says, and Miss Bass smiles.

“Of course!”

Mom says yes.


	3. In the Present (2009)

Fuck new beginnings.

High school is just like middle school, just with more walking. People are just the same.

(It’s not that she didn’t try. It’s the _glass_ between her and the other kids, because she _survived_ and they didn’t.)

(She can’t know if they would fight back or break.)

(Sophia doesn’t want to be friends with a victim. Sophia doesn’t want to be friends with someone who might _break_.)

Sophia survived, and they didn’t, and it’s like a wall of glass between them.

(It’s not like with little kids. Little kids aren’t supposed to _survive_ , or fight back. People are supposed to take care of them.)

She could hang out with some of the older Wards. Rory told her she could go to him if she couldn’t make any friends.

She doesn’t want to.

(It feels too much like giving up.)

School is hard, and Sophia almost wishes for a fight.


	4. In the Past (2007)

There’s a cape fight in the street, and Sophia doesn’t know what to do.

(She’s not stupid. She knows she can’t take on a cape, not yet, can fight _two_ even less.)

Sophia knows she can go away fast, if she needs too. Run through the walls and go home, or keep running to another street.

But she can’t take Eddie with her if she does that.

Sophia tells Eddie they’re playing hide and seek to surprise his mom, and hides him in the closet, and then she looks through the window to see what the capes are doing.

One of them is in black, and whips mean-looking chains around. The other one is shooting laser thingies out of his fingers.

And then, things happen real fast.

Chain Guy tries to swing at Laser Man, but misses, and the chain goes right through the window where Sophia is looking, and she phases through the broken glass. 

Eddie comes out of the closet, and Sophia grabs his arm to drags him in the basement or something, away from the window with the capes before he can get hurt.

Laser Man shoots three lasers very fast at Chain Guy, and one of them hits him, and another crashes in the wall.

The last one hits Eddie and Sophia.


	5. In the Present (2009)

Sophia knows she’s not nice, or kind, and maybe that doesn’t help with the whole ‘making friends’ thing, but she can’t find it in herself to be.

Sophia doesn’t smile to strangers. She doesn’t share her candy or dessert. She doesn’t hug people when they’re feeling down, or comfort them if they cry, except little kids because they need to be hugged to grow up right.

Sophia isn’t _nice_.

She’s rough, and sharp, and she’s not kind, and she pushes a girl out of her way.

The girl starts to cry, and Sophia knows she _should_ be sorry, _should_ feel guilty, but she doesn’t.

(It was just a little push. The girl isn’t actually hurt, she just being _pathetic_.)

Sophia doesn’t apologize.

(Somehow, Dean hears about it, and she can feel his disappointed look on her long after they’ve parted ways.)


	6. In the Past (2007)

Sophia had never seen someone die before.

She’s standing in the hallway, and through the window, she can see Chain Guy.

Laser Man isn’t there, but there’s a woman with a baby head sticking out of the side of her neck, and she raises her hand toward Chain Guy and touches his cheek where his mask left it bare.

His flesh twists and turns and _melts_ , and Sophia doesn’t know how long it takes, but then he’s _gone_.

Except there’s a leg coming out off the woman’s waist, and the face of a man on the side of her head.

Sophia had never seen someone die before.

“Soso?” asks Eddie, and she clamps a hand on his mouth, and then drags him to the kitchen, because the windows are smaller and maybe the woman won’t see them.

(It looks like Miss Bass’s house, like Miss Bass’s kitchen, but there are no muffins on the countertop, and the picture of Eddie on his first day of kindergarten isn’t stuck to the fridge.)

There’s a monster outside, and they’re not in Brockton Bay anymore.


	7. In the Present (2009)

Before going home, Sophia stops by Miss Bass’s house and ask her if she can play with Eddie.

“Of course,” Miss Bass says.

It’s very rare for Miss Bass to say Sophia can’t see Eddie.

(Miss Bass really likes Sophia since she came back. She even told her she could call her Jayne, but Sophia really doesn’t think she can do it.)

Eddie wants to play with Kaplas, and Sophia helps him build the tallest tower they can.

(Sophia just wants to spend some time with him. To see that he’s alive, and happy, and okay.)

(They made it home. They’re fine.)

It’s been two years, and sometimes, Sophia still thinks she’s going to wake up and still be _there_.


	8. In the Past (2007)

It’s getting late.

Sophia used her shadow form to have a look around the street. It looks almost like her street at home, but a few things are different, like different curtains or cars or names on the mailbox.

It’s empty, except for the Things. Some almost look human, like the woman who killed Chain Guy, but others are bigger, bloated _mix_ of body parts, like the one in the neighboring house.

(It has her face, and a hand with Mom’s ring, and she doesn’t want to think about it.)

There’s no electricity, and the phone doesn’t work.

She can’t take Eddie outside with the Things, and she doesn’t want to leave him alone in the house while she goes looking for the police station.

It’s getting late. Eddie is getting whiner, and she thinks it means he’s tired. 

She’ll deal with it tomorrow. 

Sophia makes sure to close the shutters of all the windows, and then she shares a can of corn from the kitchen with Eddie and puts him to bed.

She stays in his room, and holds his hand.

She doesn’t sleep.


	9. In the Present (2009)

One time, after Sophia had come to play with Eddie every evening for two weeks straight, Miss Bass had held her back before she could go home.

“You know my door is always open if you need to talk,” she had said.

(What was Sophia supposed to say?)

(That her mother takes care of her, but out of duty rather than love, or even care?)

(That sometimes, Sophia wonders if her mother wouldn’t rather she hadn’t come back?)

(That it feels like Eddie is the only one who gives a shit about her?)

(That she only remembers how to be kind when he’s there?)

“I’m fine,” Sophia had said.

This time, Sophia still doesn’t talk.

She lets Miss Bass make her a cup of hot chocolate, though, and it’s warm and sweet.


	10. In the Past (2007)

Sophia locks Eddie in his room.

She kinda feels bad about it, but she needs to check if she can find someone, and she needs to be sure he doesn’t wander off or something.

She looks for an hour, then two, then three, using her shadow form to avoid Things and locked doors, and then she has to go back. She can’t leave Eddie alone for too long, and he can’t go to the bathroom with the door locked.

She didn’t find anyone.

She shares a can of tuna with Eddie for lunch, and then finds a stack of paper and a box of Crayola.

He draws his Mom, and Sophia realizes she’s alone.

She’s all alone. There is no adult.

What will she do when they run out of canned food? Of bottled water? If Eddie throws a tantrum and the Things come because of the noise? If the Things get inside? What will she do if Eddie gets sick?

What will she do if _she_ gets sick?

Sophia closes the door so Eddie doesn’t see her cry.


	11. In the Present (2009)

A tray slams on the table before Sophia with all the grace of a landslide, and she raises her head from her lunch.

“My name is Brianna Dorsey,” says the girl now sitting in front of her. “Call me Dee.”

‘Dee’ is small and looks incredibly delicate, with the kind of beauty that comes from hours spent in front of a mirror and not having money as an object. Fashionable clothes, perfectly styled pixie cut, impeccably manicured hands. No makeup, though, probably vetoed by the parents.

She’s smiling widely. Her teeth are very, very white.

“Go away,” says Sophia.

Dee’s smile doesn’t falter.

“No.”

“Go. Away.”

“No.”

Shit, that smile is pissing her off.

“Go away, _Brianna_.”

Somehow, Dee’s smile becomes even larger.

“Oh, I _like_ you,” she says, and Sophia really wants to punch her into her ridiculously perfect teeth.

She doesn’t. They’re in the middle of the cafeteria, and Sophia isn’t stupid.

“ _What do you want?_ ” she grinds out instead.

“I want to be friends,” Dee says brightly.


	12. In the Past (2007)

The following day, Sophia waits for Eddie to take a nap, and raids the pantry of the neighboring house.

(Not the one that looks like _her_ house. She doesn’t… She doesn’t want to go there ever again.)

It’s slow. The Shadow form means it’s, not safe, but safer, means she can go through walls, and the Things as they try to catch her.

(She still tries to avoid the Things if she can.)

(They’re… Wrong.)

The Shadow form makes it almost safe, but there is only so much she can take with her in it.

And then, Sophia makes a mistake.

She’s crouching in the kitchen of the house she’s raiding, trying to see if she can find other cans of food behind boxes of rice, when there’s a noise behind her, like a footstep, and she goes to Shadow form on instinct.

It’s a Thing.

There’s a Thing in the house. Sophia hadn’t checked the other rooms.

_It almost got her._

She gets back to where Eddie is sleeping and starts shaking.

_It almost got her._

She thinks about the Thing with her face in the bedroom of the house that isn’t hers.


	13. In the Present (2009)

Sophia wakes up. 

She stays very, very still for a few seconds, and then scrambles to turn on the night lamp.

Electricity is running.

The sheets on her bed are ones she got _after_ coming back.

The stick figure she had Eddie spray-paint on the wall is there.

She’s home. She’s fine. She’s home.

She’s _home_.

She lets herself fall back on the mattress.

Shit.

 _Shit_.

She’d thought…

She had started to get less nightmares, hadn’t had one that bad in a while, and it’s not the first time they’ve slowed down before coming back in force, but she’d hoped…

The nightmare was _bad_.

(She was the Thing with her face in the house that wasn’t hers. She was the Thing with her face, and another face was Steven’s and he wouldn’t _stop talking_ and she could never get away.)


	14. In the Past (2007)

Eddie wants a story.

Sophia hasn’t left the house in two days, too shaken by the close call with the Thing, and she’s starting to go stirr-crazy. She wants to run, to shout, to _hit something_ , not to _tell stories_.

Eddie is missing his Mom. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, and he’s getting whinier and whinier, and she’s scared he’s going to throw a tantrum, and scream, and the Things will come for them.

(He’s five. She doesn’t know how to make him understand he needs to be quiet all the time.)

(It’s not like she can run, or shout, or hit things.)

She pours bottled water in a cup, and add instant chocolate. She doesn’t have any way to heat it up, except maybe starting a fire, and she doesn’t want to take the risk, so it stays cold. Then, she gives it to Eddie, and sits on the sofa with him, and tries to come up with a story to tell.

She makes up a version of Red Riding Hood where the little girl fights back and kills the wolf herself.


	15. In the Present (2009)

“A prisoner has to choose between three rooms,” Dee says.

She’s been hanging out around Sophia for three days, now, either ignoring or laughing at her harshness and attempts to make her go away, and Sophia finds herself toning the aggressivity down a bit. Dee smiles a lot, in a way that makes Sophia very aware that smiles are just another way to bare teeth.

Sophia wouldn’t call her a friend, but she’s, well. 

She’s not too bad to have around.

“The first room is filled with fire,” Dee continues. “The second room is is a pit full of spikes, and there’s a lion who hasn’t eaten for a year in the third. Which room should the prisoner choose if he wants to live?”

“The lion,” Sophia says. “He can’t do anything against the fire or the spikes, but he can try to fight the lion, and maybe kill it.”

Dee stays silent for a few seconds.

“It was supposed to be because the lion would be dead after being starved for a year, but it _is_ the lion, and you _do_ have a point, so you win this one. Your turn!”

Rory gives Sophia a thumbs up from two tables away.


	16. In the Past (2007)

In the end, Sophia’s need to _move_ gets stronger than her fear, and she goes out again.

(This time, she checks the whole house first, and makes sure the door of the rooms she searches is closed.)

She finds a radio, the kind that’s used to listen the news.

The kind that works on batteries.

She immediately goes back ‘home’.

The radio doesn’t turn on.

Sophia resolutely doesn’t cry.

She looks through some drawers, and finds some batteries. She exchanges them with the ones inside the radio.

The radio turns on.

No matter which station she tries, all Sophia can get is static.


	17. In the Present (2009)

**A man without safety equipment is washing windows on the 30th floor. He falls, but isn’t hurt or killed. Why?**

Sophia stares at the text for a few seconds, then presses _send_. Dee only takes about a minute to text back.

**He’s inside the building**

Sophia snorts.

 **That was fast** , she sends.

**I already knew that one**

Not the first time it happened, on either side. There are only so many riddles in the world.

A chimes signals the arrival of another text.

**My mom’s calling for dinner. See you tomorrow!**

**See you tomorrow** texts back Sophia.

She thinks she will bring a second muffin, and share.


	18. In the Past (2007)

In the end, food is their downfall.

Because, well.

Eddie is _five_.

It’s August, and it’s hot, and no electricity means no AC, and Eddie wants ice-cream.

Sophia doesn’t have any ice-cream.

Eddie throws a tantrum, and screams, and Sophia clamps a hand over his mouth, but it’s already too late.

The Things have heard.

There are sounds outside, Things banging against the shutters and the door, and Sophia tries to use the furnitures as barricades, but they are heavy, hard to move, and she is out of time.

The door breaks down, and the Things come in.

Sophia isn’t sure what happens next, her actions blurred together by the beating of her heart in her ears, but she manages to get Eddie and herself out.

There are Things outside.


	19. In the Present (2009)

Drinking a cup of hot chocolate with Miss Bass before going home becomes something of a ritual.

Sophia still doesn’t talk. She doesn’t know how.

Sophia doesn’t talk, but she knows Miss Bass would listen if she did, would listen and would _care_ , and that alone is not quite enough, but it almost is and that’s a start.

Eddie sits in her lap, heavy and warm, and shows her a drawing he made, and Miss Bass asks her about her day, and in her pocket there’s a riddle sent by Dee, and earlier that day Dean tried to describe what his powers were like and sounded like he’d gotten high, and Sophia is still sharp, Sophia still isn’t _nice_ , Sophia still isn’t _kind_ , but all those things are sweet against her bitterness, like sugar and milk in cacao powder.

Sophia has a not-quite-home, and it’s not-quite-enough, but it’s so much better than not having a home at all.


	20. In the Past (2007)

Sophia dodges the Things as well as she can, but it’s hard, because she has to carry Eddie and she can’t take him with her in Shadow form, and she can’t do stuff like punching or kicking them because she doesn’t know if they can absorb her if she touches them through clothes.

(There’s a Thing with her face in the house that isn’t hers, and Sophia doesn’t want to end like that.)

Sophia dodges as well as she can, but she knows she can’t hold on forever.

She’s getting tired. Her arms hurt from Eddie’s weight, and she’s out of breath, and everything is blurry, and she’s getting dizzy and…

She trips.

She trips, and falls, and a Thing bends down and raises a hand toward her.

A halberd cuts down the Thing’s arm, and the blue of Armsmaster’s armor is the most beautiful thing Sophia has ever seen.

“Take them to the portal !” he says, and Velocity is there, too, and he takes Eddie from her arms and tells her to follow him, and they start running as Armsmaster covers their retreat.

(He doesn’t use his superspeed, for some reason, even after Sophia goes to Shadow form and tells him to get Eddie to safety.)

They run for a while, and then there’s a strange door in the air leading to the insides of a white plastic tent, with a weird machine she doesn’t recognize, and they all stepped through.

Armsmaster turns the machine off, and the door closes.

The Things are left on the other side.


	21. In the Present (2009)

Sophia has mixed feelings about therapy.

On one hand, it’s… Useful. It kept her together, after she came back, when she couldn’t bear to let Eddie out of her sight, and gave her the tools she needed to deal with the nightmares, or the irrational fear to still be _there_ whenever she’s alone. 

(The suggestion to modify her room in easily recognizable ways so she can immediately tells where she is when she wakes up, for example, comes from Doctor Wiggins.)

It has even helped a bit with her anger issues.

(Sophia doesn’t know who she would have become, had things been different.)

On the other hand, the rotation shit is pissing her off.

At first, it was Doctor Wiggins.

Then it was Doctor Grimes.

Then Doctor Aranello.

Doctor O’Neill. Melton. Savage. Ho. Beltran. Right now, Doctor Pitts.

She knows why the therapists rotate. She can even understand the reasoning behind it, somewhat.

But it was weird, after all that time spent talking to Doctor Wiggins, to have him replaced, only to, a few months later, have Doctor Grimes be replaced too.

By the time Doctor Melton rolled by, Sophia didn’t believe anymore she was anything to them but a collection of files and problems to be solved. Didn’t believe anymore that they give a _shit_ about her. 

So, Sophia has mixed feelings about therapy.

Because, as things are, it helps, but it isn’t quite enough.


	22. In the Past (2007)

In the white plastic tent Sophia pries Eddie out of Velocity’s arms, and holds him tight.

(There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn’t hers. There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn’t hers, and Sophia can’t stop thinking about it, or Eddie, or how close she came to dying tonight, how close she came to have her body warp and melt and become _one of them_.)

Sophia holds Eddie as tight as she can.

Someone is telling her it’s alright, it’s fine, it’s over, she’s safe now, it’s all going to be all right, she’s _safe_ , it’s _over_ , she’s _back_.

She’s not sure she believes it.

(There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn’t hers.)

They make her take showers full of chemicals, and wait for days in strange locked rooms, and strange people ask her questions through walls and interphones, and the whole time, she refuses to let Eddie out of her sight.

It’s over. She’s home.

She can’t quite believe it.


	23. In the Present

“James is _stupid_!”

Eddie’s arms are crossed in righteous indignation, and he’s aggressively pouting. Sophia resolutely doesn’t laugh.

“James is in your class, right? What did he do?”

Eddie pouts harder, but brightens as he speaks.

“In class, we were talking about superheroes, and then, Miss Mason, she asked who our favorite superheroes were, and I said you were mine ! But then, James, he said you weren’t a superhero, because you didn’t have powers, or, or, a mask, and a secret identity, and stuff.”

Sophia tries not to wince. Eddie didn’t understand what her using her powers meant at the time, or forgot about it, and it was deemed safer not to put him back in the confidence.

Sophia is mostly fine with that, but sometimes, it leads to awkward conversations.

“I don’t care if you don’t have powers! You’re still the best superhero in the whole world!”

Eddie beams at her.

She smiles back.


	24. In the Past (2007)

Laser Man’s name is Zap.

The PRT says he’s a villain, but apparently, he thinks of himself as a vigilante, and only goes after other villains.

His lasers aren’t actually lasers, just beams that send people to the other world. The PRT is calling it Earth Vav.

Zap is a villain because once he sends someone to Earth Vav, that’s it. He can’t bring them back. Apparently, he can tell whether they’re still alive, but that’s it.

They don’t tend to live very long.

Zap didn’t mean to send Sophia and Eddie to Vav, but he _did_ , and they could have been hurt, they could have _died_ , they could have…

(There was a Thing with her face in the house that wasn’t hers.)

Sophia hates him.

(He surrendered. When he realized he’d sent them to Vav, he gave himself up to the Protectorate, and worked with Armsmaster to make the machine to bring them back.)

(He sent them there, and brought them back, and he will go to jail for it.)

Sophia wanted to be a vigilante, but she can’t, now. The PRT knows about her, and so does her mom.

Armsmaster’s hand is heavy on her shoulder, equal parts reassurance and burden.

“Welcome to the Wards, Odessa,” he says.


	25. In the Present (2009)

“… Is that a kid?” Dee asks. 

She asked Sophia to meet her on the Boardwalk, and she’s holding a plastic cup full of something colorful in each hand. Sophia came, but brought Eddie. He doesn’t like being left out. 

“Yes,” says Sophia.

Dee and her stare at each other in silence until Eddie get bored and starts tugging on Sophia’s hand.

“Eddie, this is Dee. Dee, this is Eddie. He’s my neighbor’s kid.” Sophia says.

“Is there a particular reason he’s there?” Dee asks.

Sophia picks Eddie up and settles him on her hip. He’s used enough to it he doesn’t bother protesting.

“We’re a package deal,” she says.

Dee stays silent a little longer, then shrugs, and smiles wider, and gives a cup to Sophia and the other to Eddie.

“The more the merrier!” Dee says.


End file.
